Gujarat heart for world's biggest N-fusion reactor

AHMEDABAD: International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is the world's biggest six-country scientific collaboration to generate nuclear fusion energy in France, will get its heart from Gujarat.

The Institute of Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar, is supervising the fabrication of reactor's crucial parts â€” the cryostat and the vacuum vessel â€” at L&T's plant in Hazira near Surat.

The cryostat and the vacuum vessel of the ITER Tokamak fusion reactor is the heaviest, the largest and the most central component. The reactor intends to produce 500 megawatts of power from 50 megawatts input. The plant would start first experiments by 2020.

IPR director Dhiraj Bora, in his address at the Gujarat Science Congress held recently in Ahmedabad, said India will deliver the 30x30m cylindrical cryostat. "We have started fabricating it at L&T Hazira and it will be taken to ITER site in Cadarache in France where we have a workshop to integrate the components," he said. The first consignment will be shipped out in December.

The site is spread over 180 hectares â€” the size of 60 soccer fields â€” on which it has a 42 hectare platform to mount the nine-storey reactor.

India, through IPR, has been part of the project since 2005. The ITER Agreement was signed by China, the EU, India, Japan, S Korea, Russia and the United States. The success of the project would determine the future of the technology across the world which is desperately seeking alternatives as today 80% of requirement is met by the fast-depleting fossil fuel.